Free The Best of Lucius Shepard by Lucius Shepard Page B

dreams, memories of smoking weed and chasing tail and
hanging out and freeway flying with a case of something cold, and how you
smuggled back a human-shaped container of pure Salvadorian emptiness. Primo
grade. Smuggled it back to the land of silk and money, of mindfuck video games
and topless tennis matches and fast-food solutions to the nutritional problem.
Just a taste of Salvador would banish all those trivial obsessions. Just a
taste. It would be easy to explain.
     
    Of
course, some things beggared explanation.
     
    He
bent down and adjusted the survival knife in his boot so the hilt would not rub
against his calf. From his coat pocket he withdrew the two ampules he had
secreted in his helmet that long-ago night in the cloud forest. As the neon
explosion flashed once more, glimmers of gold coursed along their shiny
surfaces. He did not think he would need them; his hand was steady, and his
purpose was clear. But to be on the safe side, he popped them both.
     
    <>
     
    *
* * *
     
    A
Spanish Lesson
     
     
    That winter of ‘64, when I was
seventeen and prone to obey the impulses of my heart as if they were
illuminations produced by years of contemplative study, I dropped out of
college and sailed to Europe, landing in Belfast, hitchhiking across Britain,
down through France and Spain, and winding up on the Costa del Sol—to be
specific, in a village near Malaga by the name of Pedregalejo—where one night I
was to learn something of importance. What had attracted me to the village was
not its quaintness, its vista of the placid Mediterranean and neat white stucco
houses and little bandy-legged fishermen mending nets; rather, it was the fact
that the houses along the shore were occupied by a group of expatriates, mostly
Americans, who posed for me a bohemian ideal.
     
    The
youngest of them was seven years older than I, the eldest three times my age,
and among them they had amassed a wealth of experience that caused me envy and
made me want to become like them: bearded, be-earringed, and travel-wise. There
was, for example, Leonard Somstaad, a Swedish poet with the poetic malady of a
weak heart and a fondness for marjoun (hashish candy); there was Art
Shapiro, a wanderer who had for ten years migrated between Pedregalejo and
Istanbul; there was Don Washington, a black ex-GI and blues singer, whose
Danish girlfriend— much to the delight of the locals—was given to nude sunbathing;
there was Robert Braehme, a New York actor who, in the best theatrical
tradition, attempted halfheartedly to kill several of the others, suffered a
nervous breakdown, and had to be returned to the States under restraint.
     
    And
then there was Richard Shockley, a tanned, hook-nosed man in his late twenties,
who was the celebrity of the group. A part-time smuggler (mainly of marijuana)
and a writer of some accomplishment. His first novel, The Celebrant, had
created a minor critical stir. Being a fledgling writer myself, it was he whom
I most envied. In appearance and manner he suited my notion of what a writer
should be. For a while he took an interest in me, teaching me smuggling tricks
and lecturing on the moral imperatives of art; but shortly thereafter he became
preoccupied with his own affairs and our relationship deteriorated.
     
    In
retrospect I can see that these people were unremarkable; but at the time they
seemed impossibly wise, and in order to align myself with them I rented a small
beach house, bought a supply of notebooks, and began to fill them with page
after page of attempted poetry.
     
    Though
I had insinuated myself into the group, I was not immediately accepted. My
adolescence showed plainly against the backdrop of their experience. I had no
store of anecdotes, no expertise with flute or guitar, and my conversation was
lacking in hip savoir faire. In their eyes I was a kid, a baby, a clever puppy
who had learned how to beg, and I was often the object of ridicule. Three
factors saved me from worse ridicule: my